


msg (my special guy)

by wasd



Category: Buzz (Korea Band), 아는 형님 | Knowing Bros | Ask Us Anything
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining, Psychic Abilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 09:21:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15045869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wasd/pseuds/wasd
Summary: "Admit it: does he even know that he'll be singing a duet, or did you just kidnap him from SM?"





	msg (my special guy)

**Author's Note:**

> written for [mzasilky](https://twitter.com/mzasilky), who asked for an "AU where mkh gets khc to agree to sing duet in buzz concert. khc is nervously meeting with the rest of buzz members for the first time and practising together. (Suspicion arises)." i modified parts of the prompt, mostly because i've got marriage (and psychic powers) on my mind lately.
> 
> title derived from a rejected name for buzz's [남자라면](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mUxWyDiotU) (bonus [tiny instruments version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vttxx1nEdg)).
> 
> edited 6/26 for a minor line addition, thanks [iotr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iotr)!

Nobody listened in to Kyunghoon and Ms. Jeong's conversation in the hallway, but whatever negotiations transpired there concluded with Kyunghoon retreating back into the practice room, completely cowed, and telling his members, "We'll be playing a song at noona's wedding."

Yejun immediately got up from behind his drum kit and exchanged a high-five with Ms. Jeong.

Kyunghoon pouted. Then he pouted even harder when Sunghee offered his hand. "I don't need your feelings, hyung," he whined, but when Sunghee didn't budge, he relented, letting Sunghee pull him down for a soothing cuddle. Over the years, the band had developed so many techniques to deal with Kyunghoon and his inexplicable ability to feel what other people felt, but by a large margin, the most successful method was to sit on him (mostly metaphorically, although on a few occasions it became literal) and make him focus on his members' emotions until he calmed down. 

"I'll start crying at the first verse and it'll serve you right if Woohyun-hyung is forced to finish the rest of the song," Kyunghoon grumbled, even as his shoulders relaxed.

"It won't be that bad," Sunghee said, but Kyunghoon could taste the acrid grit of his doubt. "You have me and Junki-hyung there to focus on— well, maybe just me," as they recalled the sobbing mess that was Junki at Yejun's traditional Buddhist wedding. "In case of an emergency, we can just set up your mic stand beside the drum kit and you can sit on Yejung-hyung's unfeeling lap."

"Yah," Yejun dryly objected.

Kyunghoon let himself be cuddled for a few minutes, before he abruptly stood up and said, "I know what I'm going to do."

*

At the next practice, Kyunghoon came in with Kim Heechul in tow and announced, "Our song for noona is going to be a duet."

"Is this what happens when we let you get away with everything for fifteen years?" Sunghee wondered out loud.

"Hello," Heechul said. He looked shell-shocked, like Kyunghoon had misled him to thinking they would be hanging out as a duo, but suddenly found himself being introduced to four guys who, coincidentally, were all wearing black, and were equally surprised to be confronted with a man in a mustard yellow tracksuit. 

Junki, mercifully, broke the awkward silence by getting up from his comfortable sprawl on the floor and shaking Heechul's hand. "Hi, I see you on TV. Nice to finally meet you."

The rest of the guys followed suit with their greetings. Some of the strain on Heechul's face eased at their calm courtesy, and he loosened up enough to joke, "If Kyunghoon had warned me beforehand that I'll be meeting you all, I'd have worn something better."

Kyunghoon, who was distractedly fussing with microphones, said, "What for? They're just my members."

In a moment of perfect solidarity, Heechul and 4/5ths of Buzz shared a collective look of 'my god he's lucky we love him'.

*

Kyunghoon's brilliant plan to control his power long enough to sing at Ms. Jeong's wedding without crying along with the emotional guests was...to make Heechul sing with him. 

"His emotions keep me steady during filming," Kyunghoon explained.

"I do?" 

"He does?" 

"Admit it: does he even know that he'll be singing a duet, or did you just kidnap him from SM?"

Kyunghoon ignored their side comments. "Whenever I get nervous or uncomfortable, I just concentrate on Heechul-hyung, which helps me feel a bit better. He's like a warm bath, or a nice sweater, or my mom's cooking."

He said all of this to Yejun, with his back to Heechul, so it was only Sunghee and Woohyun who saw the indescribable look that dawned on Heechul's face, a complicated mixture of surprise and awe and something deeply private that they recognized whenever they settled down for the night beside their wives.

*

 _are they together_ , Woohyun messaged Sunghee.

 _didn't you help him write that duet_ , Sunghee replied.

 _yes but that was a breakup song. i didn't want to be insensitive. he might have hurled himself into the sea_ , wrote Woohyun.

_fair point. didn't he break his arm because he was trying to run away from you and junki-hyung staging a feelings intervention?_

_a grown man escaping from his emotions on a hoverboard. classic._

_YOU FUCKERS THIS IS THE GROUP CHAT._

_oh. haha._

_SEE IF I EVER GO TO THE BEACH WITH YOU EVER AGAIN YOU JUDAS ISCARIOT._

_AND FOR THE RECORD HEECHUL IS A FRIEND._

_A FRIEND._

_sure_

_sure_

_team, what did i say about texting during band practice?_

_sorry hyung_

_sorry yejun_

_sorry hyung_

_for the record kyunghoon you sure are dense for an empath_

[민경훈 left the group '버즈 FOREVER']

_junki please add him to the group_

_again_

_i'm impressed he knows the hangul for "judas iscariot"_

*

The song they chose wasn't one of theirs—"No offense, I love all of you," Ms. Jeong had said, "but the only person who would enjoy 'Thorn' at my wedding is my fiancé"—but a jangly reworking of a trot song cheerful enough to, in Sunghee's words, counteract Kyunghoon's sad singing voice.

(Sunghee explained to Heechul, "The empathy can't make people feel things they don't already feel. It's normal that people end up crying a lot when he sings."

"Ah," replied Heechul.)

Kyunghoon had already very efficiently divided the lyrics of 'I Can't Live Without You' between him and Heechul, and was full of Ideas about how they could double and harmonize during the duet portions. Most of these Ideas, the band observed, were communicated to Heechul by means of prolonged and meaningful eye contact as they sang. Nobody was surprised that it was super effective.

During a break after their first run-through, Woohyun said, "I assume he wasn't like this while you were recording for your Universe Coward project."

Heechul agreed, saying, "I've never seen him this bossy." Woohyun idly noted that his gaze never left Kyunghoon, busy fussing over Sunghee's key changes in the bridge. It was a miracle that Kyunghoon's ears weren't burning from the intensity of Heechul's attention.

Curious, Woohyun concentrated, _pushed_ a burst of fondness at Kyunghoon. Kyunghoon's head jerked up, and he turned to blink at Woohyun. 

"What is it, Woohyun-hyung?" he asked.

Woohyun waved at him, enjoying his bewilderment and Heechul's. It was good to know that, for all of the mystery surrounding Kyunghoon's empathy, his psychic powers could only compensate so much for his subpar observational skills.

*

Something was ever so slightly off with the snare drum; Yejun halted their playing so he could tune it. Heechul asked if he could watch, saying that he wanted to learn more about drum maintenance, so Yejun let him inspect his set-up and pointedly exuded annoyance at Kyunghoon's poorly-hidden smugness at his hyungs getting along.

"Kyunghoon was right about you. You're a lot quieter than how you are on TV," Yejun said.

"Yeah, I hear that all the— he talks to you about me?"

Yejun raised an eyebrow. "Why wouldn't he talk about you? It's not like Kyunghoon makes a lot of friends for it to be unremarkable. Especially not, you know, friends he'll confide in about his weird magic thing—" He trailed off, distracted by a minute adjustment in the tension in the resonant head. When he was finished, he noticed that Heechul was no longer paying him any mind, was instead examining the drum key in his grip a little too closely. "How— how many people know?" he asked, tentative.

Yejun thought it over as he tested the drum head with his thumb. "You included? Eight people, I think. Us, his parents, his childhood friend." A quick beat to check his tuning. "Huh. You're the only new person he's told in over ten years."

"I'm honored," Heechul said lowly, but he wasn't talking to Yejun anymore.

*

Probably because having a guest kept everyone on their best behavior—or a semi-reasonable approximation thereof—the band got through the practice with a minimum of fighting and a maximum of productivity. It was such a novel experience that the final smash of the cymbals hadn't even died down when Yejun yelled at the ceiling, "Pour us some soju!"

After the third bottle, Heechul told Junki, "Now I know how the hell Kyunghoon managed to out-drink Hodong-hyung _and_ Janghoon-hyung that one time we went out for dinner."

"Did they tell him he couldn't do it?" asked Junki, and laughed into his hands at Heechul's conspiratorial nod.

"Hyung!" Kyunghoon called out, flailing from his spot on the couch. He had achieved that level of drunkenness where all of his own feelings, usually buried under layers of pretending he didn't have any, radiated from him like a furnace. Right now, they were all being blanketed with a fizzy sort of affection, sugar melting on your tongue, a burst of sunshine after the rain, which Junki half-wanted to bask in, except—

Junki nudged Heechul. "He's asking for you." When Heechul looked at him in askance, he shrugged languidly, waiting until Heechul was out of earshot before giggling again.

If Heechul couldn't tell that Kyunghoon had a particular way of saying "hyung" when he meant "Heechul", then he wasn't ready yet, Junki decided. Through his alcohol-soaked lethargy, he watched as Kyunghoon reach up and sloppily press his palms to Heechul's face, his eyelids fluttering at whatever he was feeling from Heechul, then beam at him, Heechul helplessly smiling back. _But they'll get there,_ he thought, satisfied.

*

_should i yell at them to get a room_

_if i feel kyunghoon being horny i'm walking out_

_glad i'm sober enough to remember this so i can mock the shit out of kyunghoon while he suffers from a hangover tomorrow_

_gg hyung for finding the camera app and pointing it in the right direction_

_i'll make sure these will go into their wedding album_

_that's why you're the leader_

[신준기 added 민경훈 to the group '버즈 FOREVER']

_yo kyunghoon it's not too late for us to change songs. i can learn the tabs to 'marry u' in two days._

**Author's Note:**

> referenced songs: [patti kim - 그대 없이는 못 살아 (as covered by ~~the wonders~~ buzz)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0hpeRjbAvA) and [super junior - marry u](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir-tZS3TaxM)


End file.
